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Thursday, March 21, 2019

'The promises of God are not that we will never suffer, never be confused. We will not necessarily have fulfillment according to the world’s standards, and we may never achieve our dream job, our dream relationship, or our dream life. Rather, we are called to believe that we are sinners that are forgiven, we are subject to evil from which we will be delivered, and that we will die, but will be made alive.'

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

We will be going 'The Way of the Cross' during our Lenten evening prayer services. We will not do all the stations each week, however - we will be dividing them among the first five Wednesdays in Lent. This week, we will meditate upon stations four through six.
The liturgy is adapted by The Rev. Thomas Weitzel, Florida, whose liturgy page may be found here.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

‘1Jesus, full of the Holy
Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the
wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing
at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him,
“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of
bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread
alone.’”5Then the devil led him up
and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to
him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been
given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will
worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’”9Then the devil took him
to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If
you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,’11and
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”12Jesus answered him, “It
is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him
until an opportune time.Luke 4:1-13

The Gospel lesson today is a war story. It tells of Jesus’
first battle with the evil one. The Son of God goes forth to be tempted, not by
God, for God tempts no one, but by the evil one, who successfully tempted
humanity.

Adam and Eve fell to temptation in the midst of a garden, a
place where there were the evidence of God’s good gifts around them. Jesus, on
the other hand, is cast out into the wilderness – a place where there is no
food, no signs of God’s love or even his presence.

The evil one’s goal is to separate the Son of God from his
Father. If he does this, then he will be undisputed lord of humanity – for if
this human being does not fear, love and trust God above all things, then no
human being can.

The evil one comes armed with three weapons that have never
failed him. He comes bearing gifts that have subdued human beings for all time
– hunger, power, and status.

All of us are tempted in some form in all three of these
areas. We all run into the situation where our felt physical needs come into
conflict with God’s commands and the needs of others. If we take our needs
without regard to God’s commands and the needs of others, then we have
‘commanded stones to become bread.’ In other words, we have been more concerned
with providing for our own wants and desires than being willing to receive them
from God.

Not all of us have the opportunity to seize earthly power.
But all of us are tempted to use physical or psychological power over others in
order to control them and the world around us. Power can become an aphrodisiac.
We see many people in the world who worship power, and when they worship power,
they are truly dealing with the devil.

Whenever we have power in big or small ways, we must
remember that it can quickly become a master. If we think of the book and movie
Lord of the Rings, we remember that
the Ring of Power could not be used for good. Anyone who took control of the
Ring, even if they wished to do good with it, would quickly become just as much
of a tyrant as Sauron the maker of the Ring. The more powerful they had been
before taking the Ring, the more dangerous they would be with it.

Finally, the evil one uses the weapon of status. He claims
that God’s special one will be able to use his special relationship to God to
be invulnerable. Perhaps we see this in spiritual leaders that use their status
in the church to cloak misdeeds, and presume that their station excuses these
deeds. But anyone who claims exemption from striving to keep God’s word on the
principle that God is loving and forgiving also is dependent upon status. This
is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace.’

The evil one attacks Jesus with the three weapons that have
never failed him. But Jesus does not come into the fight unarmed. He has the ‘sword
of the Spirit,’ the Word of God. Whenever the evil one tempts him, Jesus
parries with the Word of Scripture. It is with this weapon that he routs the
evil one from the field. But the devil is not vanquished, but departs ‘until an
opportune time.’ The devil saves his most powerful weapon for last, the one in
which he has the most confidence – the weapon of death. It is this assault that
Jesus must face in Jerusalem.

It is for this reason that many Christians have emphasized
memorizing Scripture – not for brownie points nor because there’s a test before
you can enter the Pearly Gates – but because we need to be armed with the weapons of the Spirit. The only weapon we have against the evil one is the
Word.

Those who would share in the king’s victory must go with him
into combat. And whether or not we know it, we are under assault.

We need not
make the devil a figure in a red suit with horns and a barbed tail. All we need
to do is remember how hunger, power and status entice people to forget God’s
commands and violate the integrity of others.

Perhaps a good place to start might be with the words Jesus
uses to repel the assaults of the devil in this passage:

One does not live by
bread alone;

Worship the Lord your
God, and serve only him,

You shall not put the
Lord your God to the test.

So we go into combat. But we don’t go alone. Alone we would
never be able to resist the evil one. ‘On earth is not his equal.’ As long as
we are on the field of combat with our Lord, however, we can put our trust in
Jesus that he will be our victor and our Savior. When the devil holds sin and
death before us, we cling to Jesus’ forgiveness and resurrection.